The treadmill is on turbo speed. Not really, but some days, it just feels that way. Especially when I manage to breathe and take things one moment at a time….and then something creeps in. It makes my heart beat faster. Forces me to my list making default. The magazines I just can’t keep up on….(notice each magazine has two copies…I am TWO months behind)
The counters to organize…..(THERE’S the remote, and wayward marshmallow stick, and camping supplies, replacement appliance manuals, Sally’s allergy medication, and on and on…)
The dishes to put away….
The cleaning that would only take a few moments….(gross—-dried retried beans)
The pumpkin seeds to be roasted….(obviously not a priority, but the growing fly colony??? Gross!!!!!)
The laundry to be put away….
Floors to be vacuumed…
Shelves and surfaces to be dealt with…
(on that shelf alone….confiscated from Alex chocolate bear cookies, knitting I started in May…2010, three vases of dead lavender Alex put in our room to help it smell relaxing, a bunch of paint chips and a heart stamp cutter for an upcoming craft project, a roll of toilet paper packed for our recent Yosemite trip, 2 necklaces that need to be restrung and fixed, a glass of water from 2 weeks ago, some of Alex’s art projects, Drew’s yet to be worked on baby book/journal)
Books to be read….including one which is to be a fall book group with my far flung reader friends…SORRY, ladies. My name is really Slacker.
A piece of artwork to be reattached…
And these are just a few of the obvious things—-places I spotted on a recent trip around the house. There are plenty of bigger projects, some pretty important, like assembling documents to have on file in order to substitute with the local school district, that have deadlines. And yet… And yet…. And yet…. Many I don’t attempt, start or even allow myself to contemplate. When did I become “this” person?
I am coming to think that it is a choice. A choice to momentarily let go. To sit and zone out on Pinterest. Or watching Project Runway. Or just rubbing my tired eyes while nursing a glass of water…or miraculously, wine.
And sometimes it feels like a Catch 22. I can make list after list after list and have days where I cross everything off, run 10 errands at 100 mph and all the things pictured above seem to slowly, but surely happen again. The ever blessed cycle. The circle of life. The reality of being human and living with littles. Life is organic, always growing, shifting, adapting, changing and moving. And while my head is spinning with to dos that seem crucial {HELLO!!!! Christmas is mere weeks away….}, sometimes waiting and purposely NOT attacking the to do list might be the best response.
Why do we beat ourselves up over these things, or better yet, hide them from others?? Don’t we ALL have these loose ends? Why don’t I soothe myself instead, with the things I DID get done? Drew’s first birthday party, a big photography card job, getting my TB test, creating and hanging fun Halloween decorations, making it to the pumpkin patch, doing the laundry (even if it didn’t get put away!), making meals for my family. Listing all of that doesn’t push away what still waits, though. The reminder that you need so many more positives to replace the negatives.
So, let’s start the weekend off with some positive self talk. When the sweet “kid”/checker in Trader Joes asked me all sorts of energetic questions about my “upcoming, relaxing weekend”, I snorted inside, died a little death and laughed. Ahhhhhh, the sweet. The young. The innocent. Weekend? Well, it just looks different. Not bad or worse, just different. Lazy Sunday afternoons, spent reading said magazines, while drinking hand squeezed lemonade? Gone. In its place is amazing insanity. Exhaustion after chasing the boys. Then evenings for which I’m too tired to tackle the to dos.
And for now, as hard as it is to let things go, I. Am. OK. With. It.
Hopefully we can ALL extend grace to ourselves and each other….and flip our perspective!
“Grace must find expression in life, or it is not grace.”. —Karl Barth
These Stones 